The present invention relates to heart valve replacement and, in particular, to heart valve loading and storage. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices and methods for holding, transferring and deploying prosthetic heart valves.
Prosthetic heart valves that are collapsible to a relatively small circumferential size can be delivered into a patient less invasively than valves that are not collapsible. For example, a collapsible valve may be delivered into a patient via a tube-like delivery apparatus such as a catheter, a trocar, a laparoscopic instrument, or the like. This collapsibility can avoid the need for a more invasive procedure such as full open-chest, open-heart surgery.
Collapsible prosthetic heart valves typically take the form of a valve structure mounted on a stent. There are two types of stents on which the valve structures are ordinarily mounted: a self-expanding stent and a balloon-expandable stent. To place such valves into a delivery apparatus and ultimately into a patient, the valve must first be collapsed or crimped to reduce its circumferential size.
Despite the various improvements that have been made to the collapsible prosthetic heart valve delivery process, conventional storage, transfer and delivery techniques suffer from some shortcomings. Ideally, prosthetic heart valves are properly packaged at the manufacturing facility to ensure that the arriving valve performs as intended, and that the design and the quality of the valve is not compromised during delivery. However, in conventional prosthetic heart systems, the valve may sometimes be damaged during delivery. In addition to physical damage of the prosthetic heart valve during shipping and handling, valves may also be contaminated as they are transferred from storage or during implantation in the patient.
There therefore is a need for further improvements to the devices, systems, and methods for transcatheter storage and delivery of collapsible prosthetic heart valves. Among other advantages, the present invention may address one or more of these needs.